Avoid Bad 'Burbs with RottenNeighbor.com

If you're looking to move to a new home, the last thing you want to deal with is a neighbor whose barking dog or subwoofer is going to keep you up all night. RottenNeighbor.com is designed to give ordinary...

If you're looking to move to a new home, the last thing you want to deal with is a neighbor whose barking dog or subwoofer is going to keep you up all night. RottenNeighbor.com is designed to give ordinary people an opportunity to vent their frustration at their bad neighbors, post their experiences and complaints, and warn people who are considering moving to their neck of the woods. The idea is great, but the implementation is awful.

RottenNeighbor.com is a great idea; you can learn which neighbors like to keep their cars on cinderblocks in their backyards before you have to deal with seeing it each morning from your bedroom window. Unfortunately, RottenNeighbor.com is un-moderated and open to the public. This means that the complaints at the site are at best just random gripes, and at worst potentially libelous.

Like any site that is totally public, anyone with a gripe against his or her neighbor can add a pushpin to the Google Map on RottenNeighbor.com and complain to their heart's content. You can type in your zip code on the front page to see who or what the people in your area are complaining about. Note that RottenNeighbor.com only displays certain areas at a time, so if you zoom out and don't see anything for example, in Los Angeles when you live in New York City, it doesn't mean there's nothing there--just find a zip code for the area you're interested in and type that in to get results for that area.

Once the results are displayed, click on an entry to expand the map to see what else is in the vicinity. Because the complaints are plotted on a Google Map, it's easy to navigate around and zoom in to your specific neighborhood to see what your neighbors have complained about (or to see if they're complaining about you!).

If you're ready to complain about your neighbor, simply click "contribute to this map" to add your own gripe. Type in the address you're complaining about and tell the world what it is about your neighbor or neighborhood that you dislike.

The service is still in beta but there are already thousands of entries across the country. Some of them are actually worthwhile. I wouldn't want to live next door to the band that practices at 3AM, for example. The site can also serve as catharsis for people who have no real way to complain about their neighbors' behavior other beyond calling the cops. The blog also has suggestions on way to deal with rowdy neighbors.

I wish I could say that people should just talk to one another to get over their differences, but that doesn't always work. So take the complaints with a grain or two of salt, but take a look before hopping in the car and going house-hunting.